This invention relates to telephone answering services and particularly to the remote answering services or voicemail offered by the telephone companies.
One of the features that telephone companies are attempting to market is Central Office based voicemail, as an alternative to the customer owning an answering machine which would be located in the customer premises. Central Office voicemail has several advantages over customer premise answering equipment. In particular, it is reliable, does not require equipment at the customer""s premises and can take messages while the customer is on the phone.
The primary disadvantage is that the Central Office voicemail as it currently exists does not allow incoming call monitoringxe2x80x94i.e., the ability for the customer to allow the answering machine to answer the incoming call and listen to whom is calling and decide if they wish to take the call or not.
International Patent Publication W096/32803 (Dunn et al) does disclose a technique for monitoring messages being left in a remote voicemail system. However, Dunn et al are concerned with dealing with an incoming call when the called party is already using his telephone to talk to another party. In such a situation the called party is notified of the incoming call by means of a distinctive sound superimposed on the called party""s line. The called party then has to carry out a number of specific steps such as putting the party to whom he is already talking on hold and instructing the voicemail system that he wants to monitor the incoming call.
As pointed out by Dunn et al, when the system is implemented by a single communication line to the called party, the system is rather complicated for the called party to operate. To simplify the operation, Dunn et al propose providing a second channel including a personal computer for communication with the voicemail system.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a system which permits a called party who is not already on the line to monitor a message being left in a remote mailbox.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such a system in which the monitoring is achieved automatically, i.e. without the called party having to carry out any specific operating steps other than decide not to answer the phone.
According to one broad aspect, the present invention provides a remote voicemail system connected to a central telephone switch to which are connected subscriber terminals, the voicemail system comprising:
playback means located at the central switch for playing back pre-recorded messages relating to respective subscribers;
recording means located at the central switch for recording messages from calling parties;
means a t the central switch for connecting to the playback means a call made by a calling party to a called subscriber terminal which has not been answered by the called subscriber after a predetermined time;
means at the central switch for automatically causing a distinctive ringing signal to be sent to the called subscriber terminal on or after connection of the playback means to the calling party""s unanswered call; and
means at the central switch for establishing a receive path from the calling party to the called subscriber terminal if the called subscriber manually subsequently takes the called subscriber terminal off-hook, whereby a message being recorded by the calling party is relayed automatically in real time to the called subscriber terminal.
According to another broad aspect the present invention provides a remote voicemail system comprising a central telephone switch to which are connected subscriber terminals each having hands-free capability using a hands-free speaker, the voicemail system comprising:
playback means located at the central switch for playing back pre-recorded messages relating to respective subscribers;
recording means located at the central switch for recording messages from calling parties;
means at the central switch for connecting to the playback means a call made by a calling party to a called subscriber terminal which call has not been answered by the called subscriber after a predetermined time;
means for automatically switching the called subscriber terminal to off-hook hands-free mode on or after connection of the playback means to the calling party""s unanswered call; and
means for establishing a receive path from the calling party to the hands-free speaker of the called subscriber terminal when the called subscriber terminal is in off-hook hands-free mode, whereby a message being recorded by the calling party is relayed automatically in real time to the called subscriber terminal.
The invention in a preferred embodiment makes use of interactive subscriber terminals of the type having a display screen and softkeys which are controlled by management software generated by a remote server.
In December, 1992 an industry-wide standard protocol for Analog Display Services Interface (ADSI) was completed by Bell Communications Research Inc. (Bellcore specifications) to serve as a standard for voice and display (data) information to be transmitted between subscriber display-based terminals and telecommunications switches or servers over the existing copper telephone lines. This standard protocol also defines the formats for the large scrollable displays and softkeys to support new enhanced, interactive, services.
Typical of the interactive subscriber terminals (telephone sets) designed to support the ADSI protocol is the one described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 354,599 filed on Dec. 13, 1994 in the name of William V. Pezzullo et al and entitled xe2x80x9cScreen-Based Telephone Set For Interactive Enhanced Telephony Servicexe2x80x9d. This copending application is incorporated herein by reference.
The subscriber terminal described in the pending application has a relatively large scrollable display and context-sensitive softkeys which enable the terminal to make full use of services typically provided by telephone operating companies, as well as those services provided by enhanced service providers (ESP) delivering third party services and applications through the PSTN (public switched telephone network).
Enhanced service providers (ESPs) are the second major source of ADSI-based services. ESP applications are driven by information downloaded to the terminal from a serverxe2x80x94for example, an interactive voice-responsive system located in a bank.
The terminal supports the ADSI protocol which includes the concept of FDM (feature download management) software scripts which can control the display and the softkeys and cause the terminal to go on-hook, off-hook and dial numbers. The terminal also supports an extension to the Bellcore specifications which allows a server to download an FDM script without any intervention by the subscriber. This capability, called Server Initiated Download or ADSI On-Hook Alerting for Automatic Feature Download, requires access to the Tip and Ring of the telephone line connected to the target subscriber terminal while the terminal is on-hook. The downloading of the FDM script is carried out unobtrusivelyxe2x80x94i.e., without ringing the telephone.
The terminal according to the present invention is an interactive telephone subscriber terminal having a display screen, dial pad and softkeys, the terminal having hands-free capability and being programmed such that on receipt of a standard ringing signal remains on-hook and on receipt of a distinctive ringing signal goes off-hook and activates the hands-free capability.